


Swaps

by CredibilityProblem, May



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles, Game Constructs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CredibilityProblem/pseuds/CredibilityProblem, https://archiveofourown.org/users/May/pseuds/May
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A couple of art-fic swaps that we did for tumblr. The first one is about Gamzee and Karkat fighting underlings, the second one is about Gamzee and Damara meeting in the bubbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[](http://imgur.com/FQ1MwoJ)

There’s nothing about Gamzee that’s lumbering. You’ve built up some decent skill but there’s something quick, something easy when he fights underlings. There’s a lot, though, that you’ve never considered about him.

“This one’s got some motherfucking swirls on its husk,” ponders Gamzee, neatly twisting its head from its shoulders. You can’t remember what kind it is, but it’s small and stump-limbed, with two heads.

He watches it explode and the grist cascade and hit the ground. ‘Hit’ should be kept in enclosure talons, though. There’s no impact; it just stops at a boundary. There’s a lack of permanence to it and that makes you feel a little ill when you think about it too much.

The dense circus lights skim across the grist (looking up, though, you notice that those lights come from nowhere) as Gamzee watches. It’ll take a while to disappear, but you don’t think that there’s any point in waiting.

“Come on, even you can get something out of that. And it helps the rest of us.” With one slow foot, Gamzee steps on one small cluster of grist. It pops into non-existence . Gamzee angles his head as it fizzes into him, and then walks into one of the larger particles.

A second underling skitters past on insect legs, tilting its goat horns at you and screaming like you used to hear when you cut a morning too fine. Gamzee takes in the shape of its head and its bubbling orange skin, curiously. You don’t have time to wonder before its felid tail swings towards you.

You get a back leg with your sickle and Gamzee catches the horns, and it screams again, bleeding orange fluid in three quick spurts over your shoulder. You get another hit against its side and Gamzee jumps lithely out of the way as it swings its body towards him. You don’t know how he ever managed to trip over his squeaking horns.

You take a good swing when the underling snaps at you, and bury your sickle in its eye. There’s a third scream as Gamzee grabs it just below the neck, but that gets cut off when its spine is severed.

This time, the grist falls in glistening orange droplets. Dreamy-limbed, Gamzee folds himself onto the ground, reaching one hand out to skim the top of a droplet. This one dissolves into his narrow palm, but he doesn’t bother to collect any more.

“Your turn, best friend.” He shrugs and lets his arms drop into a fold on top of his knees. His elbows cast an angle, and his horns have a thin crack runs from the base to the tip. You pick up the grist and it pops into nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

[](http://imgur.com/qCFkoVZ)

When you wake up in the bubble, you don’t bother trying to remember falling asleep. You would eat slime and then doze, so it’s normal for you not to realize that you’re going somewhere until you’ve got there. Pain splits across your middle when you shift and you guess that you’re torn, again. You don’t lift your shirt to see – you’ve seen your own insides, before.  
You’re in the dark bubble that Kurloz made. Once, you might have gratefully licked his fingers once upon a time. As it is, he just creeps into those bits of raw pan that the slime left, and it makes you coil down inside even as you work side by side. You sit against the inner film of the bubble and watch its surface shimmer, and it gives you a vague reflection of the sea.

You gawp a little and let the pain thrum gently across your torso. The sea is flat, today, anyway, its surface opaque. You don’t notice her slide through the bubble until it’s popped back behind her. She’s from old dreams, you think. You used to dream a lot.

Between her curled horns, she doesn’t look at you like she didn’t think you would be there. And then she stares you over, slowly. By the hang of her jaw and the shape of her mouth, you wonder how much of an obstruction you might be. When she sits beside you and crosses her legs, you’re not sure.

“What?” you say. Your shoulders slip and you feel irritated enough that a tension spreads. Confusion is nothing new, either.

She twitches that mouth and looks you up from your torso and down from your horns. Her eyes, lost white, settle on your face. You feel motherfucking new, somehow, like you’re transient, or like you don’t know shit. And you’re not sure that you do.

“You say your prayers?” There’s some ridicule, but she’s curious as you.

“Prayer is for the motherfucking trolls who don’t motherfucking do.” You had morning prayers, once.

She grins, and her teeth don’t need any more edge than they’ve got. “Like Kurloz.”

The answer is right there. “Yeah.” You’re not the one who pretends. “He’s all in his sweet little church down here, whispering against the motherfucking floor.”

She looks down at the swirling darkness and gives a quick trinket of a laugh. She frowns, raising a hand up at your chest. She’s going to touch you and you don’t stop it, but she pauses, tilting her head to the side.

“You are bleeding?” She’s unmoved but you settle into it, anyway.

“Mmm.” Your voice crackles in your own ears and you lift up your shirt to show yourself up to the middle of your chest. The stretch of your muscle hurts, but she looks so motherfucking taken by the sight of your blood that you don’t mind. You recognise the memory on her face and it hurts.

Slowly, she reaches forward and you don’t stop her when she brushes the slick edges of one wound. Before her fingers slip into the fleshy wound at the top of your ribcage arc, you notice the motherfucking age in her eyes. It wakes you up.


End file.
